Physiological sensing based on Doppler radar is gaining popularity as a non-contact methodology for monitoring vital signs. In many applications, it is necessary to monitor subject's respiration and heart rate. Especially for emergency rescue operations, where it may be impossible to measure vital signs of burn patients through contact or for subjects trapped in debris, where it may be impossible to reach them, it may be necessary to use a non-contact monitoring approach to acquire these vital signs. Furthermore, non-contact monitoring of vital signs may be useful in long-term monitoring of elderly in home-care where multiple subjects may be monitored independently using a single device. Non-contact monitoring may be a viable method for reducing the health care costs by enabling non-contact vital sign monitoring. In military or police operations, non-contact monitoring may be used for security purposes by tracking subjects of interest even under the ground or behind walls. However, existing systems provide limited capability in identifying human contacts and provide limited information on the identified contact.
Accordingly, systems and methods that enable non-contact detection of human breathing at a distance remain highly desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.